How it Works: Augmented Reality

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How it Works: Augmented Reality

Remember the winking, nodding magical collectible cards of famous witches and wizards from Harry Potter? French company Total Immersion has something similar for Muggles: The company helped create baseball cards where 3-D avatars of players emerged on the desktop to pitch and bat with real-world users, and is also now working with Mattel to create a new line of action figures based on the upcoming sci-fi-flick Avatar.

Digital magic known as augmented reality made it possible. "Augmented reality is a composite experience–a video stream merged with a synthetic component and manipulated in real time," says Greg Davis, general manager at Total Immersion. "We are taking video and superimposing a digital layer over it.”

Total Immersion is one of the most successful augmented reality providers currently. Here's a quick look at how the company's augmented reality technology for the desktop works. Take the baseball cards. Users have to first log on to a URL and navigate to the 3-D section of the website, where they enter an interactive code found on their baseball card to activate the software. Then, they can hold the card under a webcam and Total Immersion's software goes to work. It identifies a target on the baseball card, then overlays a virtual baseball player on the video onscreen. Users can then rotate the baseball player and make it perform a select few actions.

Now for a peek under the hood. The first step is to capture video from the webcam. When users click on a URL, this streaming video appears on a display, which can either be a desktop, cell phone screen or a projector-based display. From a user perspective, the video capture is similar to watching yourself while using Skype, explains Davis.

Total Immersion's augmented reality software then steps in. The software has three components–recognition, tracking and rendering. In the video stream, Total Immersion's software hunts for a 'target,' which is a single user or a group of users. It then tracks the target and imposes a 3-D overlay by adding a virtual object, before rendering it back on the screen in real time. There are limits: the software can only track a few targets at a time and it has restrictions on range.

For users, this means they see a composite back on the screen– them playing with a baseball player avatar or having a virtual object on their faces. "What you are seeing in the reflected video is you and something that is not–effectively augmenting reality" says Davis.

Total Immersion offers variations of this technology for cellphones and dedicated camera set ups that can be projected on to a custom screen such as large outdoor displays.